The Chatfield Story

Charles Henry Chatfield

Nellie Belle Chamberlin

Dec 26, 1894, Fruita, Mesa County, Colorado ~ In a ceremony in her parents’ home, twenty-one-year-old Nellie Chamberlin, married Charles Henry Chatfield, a ranching man of twenty-four. Nellie was a no-nonsense Catholic girl and exceedingly religious, but she also had a mind of her own and refused to consummate the marriage. In frustration, Charles took his new bride to the priest who married them, hoping for guidance. Father Carr sat Nellie down and gave her a talking to, instructing her to go home and perform her wifely duties.

Nine months later my grandmother bore her first child, and over the next twenty years delivered nine more.

Charles H. Chatfield

1907, Sanders, Montana ~ Around 1907 Charles moved the family to Rosebud County, Montana, where he managed a ranch near the hamlet of Sanders. In 1913 news came from family in California about the golden opportunities there: land was cheap, the weather was mild and rice was the big new crop. Though Charles was a highly successful rancher, Nellie had tired of the bitter cold in Montana and persuaded her husband to sell their holdings and join the relatives out west. Completing most of the preparations for the move, Charles rode into town to finalize their affairs. After being gone for four days, Nellie sent a ranch hand to look for him. Not only was he found drunk, it turned out he’d also gambled away all their money.

Determined to move, Nellie sold their wagon and team of horses for $300, using part of the proceeds for their train tickets, then silently readied her household for the long trip to California. She said nothing as she crated her New Haven kitchen-clock, a gift from her husband at the birth of their first child; said nothing as she boxed her button collection, her sewing needles, and her nearly completed crazy quilt—a crayon-colored piece she’d started during her first pregnancy; said nothing as she packed her trunks with her high-necked blouses, petticoats and linens, nothing as she packed away her family pictures, cast-iron pots, and her past.

In a fit of venom while ironing her traveling skirt, she dropped the hot sad iron on her foot. With “all aboard!” and nine children in tow, she boarded the train in a wheelchair, leaving her husband behind. Nellie, now forty-years-old, carried her wrath. Charlie, the oldest at seventeen, carried his silver timepiece and small leather-bound pocket diary. Leo, two years younger, carried his case knife. Howard, a scrappy fourteen-year-old, carried a chip on his shoulder. Roy, not quite eleven, stayed close to Nellie; he carted the food baskets and what was needed for the little ones. Her first girl, Nella May, a wisp of a child not yet ten, had her hands full hanging on to Verda who was four and tow-headed Arden who was two-and-a-half. Gordon, seven, toted his mother’s hatbox. On Nellie’s lap was tiny three-month-old Ina.

Southern Pacific Depot, Los Molinos

1913, Los Molinos, California ~ Upon arriving in Los Molinos, Nellie’s father-in-law, Isaac Willard Chatfield, met them by carriage at the Southern Pacific depot. Ten guests were too many for him to put up, so he escorted Nellie and his grandchildren across the road, ensconcing them in the Los Molinos Inn, a temporary way station for people coming to California.

1913, From the diary of Charlie Chatfield (age 17, eldest child of Charles and Nellie):
Feb 24. Warm and clear, chopped wood. Got a new baby sister.
May 23. Warm and clear. Went to Forsyth in an automobile.
May 25. Warm and clear. Packed some stuff.
May 27. Hot. Went to Hysham. Aunt Cally was on the train. Got my money.
May 28. Warm and clear. Left Sanders for Los Molinos, California
May 29. Warm and clear. Still traveling. It took 20 hours to cross Montana and to cross Idaho 1½
May 30. Warm and clear. Still on the train. We were traveling 23 hrs. in Washington.
May 31. Warm and clear, Went through Oregon and into California on train.
Jun 1. Hot and clear. Got to Los Molinos at 11 a.m. Stayed at Los Molinos Inn. Grandpa was here to meet us.
Jun 2. Pretty hot but clear. Put up a tent under a oak tree.
Jun 3. Warm in morning but cooler in evening. Went to the Los Molinos dam caught a big salmon.
Jun 4. Warm and clear. Got a job on a gasoline bailer. Papa came on train.

Charles arrived in Los Molinos three days behind his wife and children, head bowed and hat in hand, hoping for forgiveness.

California was not the land of flowers as Nellie had anticipated, but the weather was better. The family settled in Los Molinos where life was spare and she made do. Charles rice-farmed. Nellie raised the children. He puttered and tinkered and gardened. She scrubbed floors and cooked stews and mended shirts. He fed his chickens. She kneaded her bread, adjusting her baking habits to the climate and the train schedule. Every afternoon she waited for the whistle and clanking train cars to pass. Lifting her long skirt to hike the slight incline up to the tracks, she bent down and carefully balanced her cloth-covered tins of dough on the hot iron rails; it was the only way she could get her breads and cinnamon buns to rise.

At the end of each week, Charles brought home very little of what he’d made in the rice fields, his head hanging and feet dragging—broke and drunk—so foolish you could smell his shame. On occasion he tried to buy his way back into Nellie’s good graces. One time he extended a peace offering to his wife, a gift wrapped in cloth. He wanted her to take it, to pardon him. She thought it was his earnings from his weeks worth of work. It wasn’t; it was an elegant tortoise shell comb for her long dark hair that she only let down at night.

“You fool!” she snapped. “We need food, not frivolity,” and hurled his offering at his chest. “What you wasted on this could have gone to feed us for a week!” She was so angry he could taste her bile.

Charles, Nellie, Babe
1916, Chico, California

Nellie may have taken her wayward husband back but she refused to forgive him. She also refused to share her bed, although she must have once as their tenth child—my mother—was born two years later. They named her Noreen Ellen, but everyone called her Babe.

© 2014. Catherine Sevenau.
All rights reserved.